When I Met You

Chapter 23: Understudy

"Try it with more bravado, he'd definitely be bolder in this scene, considering his confession in the last one," you suggest to Cody, as he ran his lines with you. He admitted that he wasn't exactly sure how to sound in this scene, but you were more than willing to help him out, just happy things were back to normal, or so you thought. This particular scene wasn't one with you but you didn't mind helping him out, you had all of your lines memorized by this point, but of course, you'd practice a couple of scenes almost every night since you were cast. The only thing you really had to work on was the musical numbers, as more than one required training with a partner and the dance teacher but you weren't scheduled to do that today. You probably would still go over all the steps and songs by yourself anyway, as you were still a little nervous about singing in front of others, well more so in front of Loki. Yes, he's heard you sing before but it was mostly by accident or when you were just goofing around, you didn't want to screw up and look stupid in front of him and everyone at school. 

You were practicing a scene with a few of the understudies when the Drama Teacher called to you and said that you needed to run lines with Spencer, the Male lead. You were pretty much done the scene and told them you'd be over in a minute but to your surprise, Cody argued, saying they weren't done yet, they still had a couple more scenes to go over. The group stayed quiet as they were fine with you going, when Sara, another understudy spoke up, saying she'd cover your lines as she didn't share any scenes with your character so it would be easy for her. You thanked her before shouting to the teacher that you'd be there in a minute, quickly packing up your stuff to head over to the stage where the main cast was rehearsing. You gave your Understudy Crew a thumbs up saying "you got this", trying to be encouraging, they returned the gesture before both you and them began cheering and hollering at each other as you walked away.  

Spencer was a really nice guy, which in all honesty, you didn't quite expect, as he was super popular, good-looking, smart, and an excellent singer and dancer, with nearly half the school's population in love with him. He was cool with the jocks, the nerds, the goths, the teachers, everybody really, it was kind of hard to hate him as somehow, on top of all that, he was also super funny and charming. He was that super perfect cool-nice guy in the movies with the bright future who you knew was going to die by the end of the first act after seeing him on screen for two minutes. Even with all of that, you were still kind of nervous when you asked Spencer about not really kissing on stage as you had a boyfriend but he was super chill about the whole thing. He explained that his partner was cool with the possibility of a kiss as it was just acting and not real but that he understood where you were coming from. But seeing as there was still a kissing part he showed you how to make it look like you were kissing when you weren't, which you were super grateful for.  

As it turned out, you and Spencer had such good on-stage chemistry, yes you ran lines with him last week near the end of rehearsals but you hadn't been on the stage with him before and it went so well. It was so good in fact, that it was almost as if you really were in love, at least it appeared that way to everyone around you, with the drama teacher more into it than anyone else in the room. The Drama Teacher ended up having you practice the musical number you had with him next, as you hadn't danced with him before, getting a feel for how you moved together. It was slow at first and you did it without music but after your third run-through, this time with the music you pretty much nailed it, as if you had done it a thousand times before. But to be fair, Spencer had practiced a bunch of times with Sally K. over the last month and a half, while you did it by yourself and with your powers and figure skating training you could do all the lifts and the like alone.  

The Drama Teacher then asked you to do the infamous kissing scene from Act 3, and it became clear to several of the students that they "shipped" the two of you just a little bit. You didn't catch onto that fact though, only finding it weird because the Teacher pretty much skipped an entire Act in the process to get to that particular scene. You were certain they would want to practice in order as not to confuse anyone, not that you were able to do the scene as something happened, that stopped everything. You got close to Spencer, about to say your first line when there suddenly came a loud smashing sound, causing you to freak out a little and duck behind your co-star. After the initial shock, you turned to where the noise came from to see that Cody somehow destroyed a table, with his bare hands, shocking everyone in the room. He looked really upset so you came over immediately to find out what was wrong, with Spencer right behind you, but as he got closer, the angrier Cody appeared. Spencer tried to calm him down asking him what was wrong, offering to just take a breather with him or go get a drink from the vending machine and talk it out, but Cody wasn't interested. He picked up a piece of the broken table and took a swing at Spencer but you quickly jumped in front, taking the hit instead, getting knocked down hard against the floor, blacking out completely.